David Elginbrod eBook

Mr. Arnold, however, did not reveal his change of
feeling so much by neglect as by ceremony, which,
sooner than anything else, builds a wall of separation
between those who meet every day. For the oftener
they meet, the thicker and the faster are the bricks
and mortar of cold politeness, evidently avoided insults,
and subjected manifestations of dislike, laid together.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Sae painfully she clam the wa’,
She clam the wa’ up after him;
Hosen nor shoon upon her feet,
She hadna time to put them on.

Scotch Ballad. —­ Clerk Saunders.

Dreary days passed. The reports of Euphra were
as favourable as the nature of the injury had left
room to expect. Still they were but reports:
Hugh could not see her, and the days passed drearily.
He heard that the swelling was reduced, and that
the ankle was found not to be dislocated, but that
the bones were considerably injured, and that the
final effect upon the use of the parts was doubtful.
The pretty foot lay aching in Hugh’s heart.
When Harry went to bed, he used to walk out and loiter
about the grounds, full of anxious fears and no less
anxious hopes. If the night was at all obscure,
he would pass, as often as he dared, under Euphra’s
window; for all he could have of her now was a few
rays from the same light that lighted her chamber.
Then he would steal away down the main avenue, and
thence watch the same light, whose beams, in that
strange play which the intellect will keep up in spite
of —­ yet in association with —­
the heart, made a photo-materialist of him. For
he would now no longer believe in the pulsations of
an ethereal medium; but —­ that the very
material rays which enlightened Euphra’s face,
whether she waked or slept, stole and filtered through
the blind and the gathered shadows, and entered in
bodily essence into the mysterious convolutions of
his brain, where his soul and heart sought and found
them.

When a week had passed, she was so far recovered as
to be able to see Mr. Arnold; from whom Hugh heard,
in a somewhat reproachful tone, that she was but the
wreck of her former self. It was all that Hugh
could do to restrain the natural outbreak of his feelings.
A fortnight passed, and she saw Mrs. Elton and Lady
Emily for a few moments. They would have left
before, but had yielded to Mr. Arnold’s entreaty,
and were staying till Euphra should be at least able
to be carried from her room.

One day, when the visitors were out with Mr. Arnold,
Jane brought a message to Hugh, requesting him to
walk into Miss Cameron’s room, for she wanted
to see him. Hugh felt his heart flutter as if
doubting whether to stop at once, or to dash through
its confining bars. He rose and followed the
maid. He stood over Euphra pale and speechless.
She lay before him wasted and wan; her eyes twice
their former size, but with half their former light;
her fingers long and transparent; and her voice low
and feeble. She had just raised herself with
difficulty to a sitting posture, and the effort had
left her more weary.